One of the topics of English Cafe 110 was eating in a restaurant. We had a couple of good questions about tipping, so I thought I would answering them here. Jeff and I wish we could answer more questions on the blog, but we just don’t have enough time to do it and to produce three podcasts a week. We wish we did! To hear more about the topic of tipping in an American restaurant, listen to English Cafe 41.

Question 1 from David:

Last time my parents and I had a dinner…at the end of the dinner, a waiter put a booklet in our table, inside it’s the check. Then, of course, my mom paid the bill, and it’s by cash. The total amount plus tax is 42 USD. So my mom put 50 USD inside, and we thought the waiter or host will give us back the changes. But he didn’t. We waited there for so long time…so the waiter came by and asked what’s going on…..well, we didn’t say anything because at that time we didn’t know how to say or how to ask (we can’t speak English well was the main point…) At last, we just leaved that resturant, but we did put the tips on the table.

I really don’t understand, is this a kind of American culture that resturant don’t give the changes back? maybe next time I should tell my parents pay by credit card?

The standard tip is 10-15% for lunch and 15-20% for dinner. Since $50 includes about 15%, your waiter may have thought that you were including the tip. (If you are paying cash and you are including the tip, you say “Keep the change.” But normally, the waiter should bring you change back if you don’t say that.) You can do one of two things in this situation:
1) When you give him your payment (money), you can say, “Could I get change, please?”
2) If he doesn’t bring your change and he asks if there’s a problem, you can say, “We’re waiting for our change” or “Could we get our change, please?” He should bring you your change and then you can leave the tip on the table (or in the little book that the check is sometimes placed in).
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Question 2 from Michael:

I generally understand the custom of leaving a tip in US restaurants, but how do you communicate it? If the bill is about $20 and you want to leave a tip of 20% ($4), will you say “make twenty-four”, “make it twenty-four”, “take twenty-four”, “get twenty-four” or something else? I’m not sure if this phrase can be translated from German which would mean “Machen Sie vierundzwanzig.”

Will the tip be given to the waiter separately? E.g. give 2 $10 bills to him for the bill and 4 $1 separately to him. Give him $25 and expect to get $1 back? How do you handle it, if you don’t pay cash, but use your credit card?

If you are paying with cash, there are several things you can do:
1) You can give the waitress a $20 bill and a $5 bill and say, “Just give me a dollar back.”
2) You can hand her the $5 bill and say, “Can I get change for a five, please?” She will bring you five $1 bills and then you can leave $24 on the table.
3) You can do #1 from Question 1.

If you pay with a credit card, there is a separate line where you can write in the tip.

gratuity = tip

Write in the amount of the tip you want to give, add that to the amount of your meal, and then write in the “total” amount. Don’t forget to sign your name at the bottom where it says “signature.” The restaurant will give the tip to your waiter or waitress.

~ Lucy

In today’s Cafe, I talk about how to become a teacher in the U.S. One of the problems I didn’t talk about is attrition (the loss of something, sometimes slowly). Teacher attrition happens when teachers quit their jobs and start a new career. This is a huge problem in the U.S., since as many as 50% of all teachers leave teaching in their first five years. Some leave because the pay is not very high, but many leave due to the stress involved in being a teacher nowadays.

An article earlier this week in the New York Times discusses this problem and some possible solutions for it. One solution is to start teacher education students in front of the classroom (teaching) right away, instead of waiting until the end of their training.

~Jeff

Today’s podcast, ESL Podcast 318, is about writing a love song. If you’re like me, you don’t know how to write a love song, but maybe you’re in the mood for (have a feeling of wanting) for love. If so, here’s some Frank Sinatra to make your Monday go by a little easier.

~ Lucy

Fly Me to the Moon

Fly me to the moon
And let me play among the stars.
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars.
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, baby, kiss me.

Fill my life with song
And let me sing forevermore.
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore.
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you.
_____________

forevermore = forever; always
to long for (something) = to have a strong wish or desire for something
to worship = to love and deeply respect, usually a god
to be true = to be faithful; to love only me

In Wednesday’s English Cafe 109, Jeff invited me to talk about Tucson, Arizona, where I grew up. Although I moved away many years ago, I still miss many things about Tucson.

The one thing I miss the most is the beautiful, breathtaking (amazing quality) sunsets. The blue skies of the day turn into paintings of yellows, oranges, reds, and purples. No picture I can find can do justice to them to show what they really look like, but some evenings can look like this:

In the Cafe, I also mentioned the rodeo. Here is what a rodeo in Tucson looks like:

As you can see, people sit in the grandstand, the seating area around the field, to watch the horse and other animal demonstrations and competitions. Here, two riders are trying to rope or to capture with a rope, a wild cow.

Other competitions include trying to ride a wild bull (male cow) or a wild horse, called a bronco. So if you’re a good horse rider, you may want to give next year’s rodeo a try!

~ Lucy

In today’s podcast, we talk about going to the park and finding a nice spot, or small place, to enjoy the scenery and nature. We mention in the “What Else Does it Mean?” section of the Learning Guide that “spot” can have a lot of different meanings, both as a noun and a verb, and in idioms like “to put (someone) on the spot.”

If you ask an average American what they think of when they hear the word “spot,” you may get a surprising answer: a dog. That’s because “Spot” is the name of a dog in a series of readers or short books used in schools with a boy and girl named Dick and Jane. They had a dog named Spot. These readers were used in schools mainly from the 1930s to the 1970s. These books were well known for their repetition, like this:

These books have been criticized over the years for being too focused on language skills and not on helping children learn to enjoy reading. Teachers and other educators–including Jeff and me–also say that these readers have poor language and uninteresting stories. In fact, some of the language is nonsensical (does not make sense). We do not recommend these readers to people learning English at any level, but they are a part of popular culture in the U.S.

Now when you see a dog or other pet in American movies and TV shows named Spot, you’ll know why, and maybe wonder where Dick and Jane are.

~ Lucy

In today’s English Cafe, I talk about the legend of Bigfoot, a mysterious man-animal that is supposed to live in the Pacific Northwest area of the United States. Be sure to read today’s Learning Guide, where in our What Insiders Know section you can learn about another mystery, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Do you know of any stories from other countries about some mystery animal that no one has every seen?

I also talk about a famous comedy routine by the great American comedians Abbot and Costello. Here’s a clip (a small section of a movie) with “Who’s on first?” The words for the most of the routine can be found here. They speak very fast, so you may want to look at the words while you watch it. The script starts about 45 seconds after the beginning of the clip. The man on the left (Costello) is selling peanuts at a baseball game, and the man on the right (Abbott) is the coach of the team. Costello asks Abbot to tell him the name of the players on the team. I suggest reading the script first, and then trying to watch the clip. It lasts about six minutes.

Today’s podcast talks about buying furniture for a new house. I discuss all the different kinds of furniture that you might want to buy. Read the Learning Guide to find out more about the different popular styles of furniture in the US, including “shabby chic” and “craftsman.”

Of course, furniture, like clothing, tells us something about who we are. For example, I don’t have a desk in my office at home. I have a big table – a dining table, really – where I like to spread out all of my papers. I also have two bookshelves that are simple but overloaded with books. I think my big table indicates that I feel the need to have lots of different pieces of information to work effectively, but that I am not very well organized!

Do you have styles like “shabby chic” and “craftsman” in your house or apartment? What’s one piece of furniture that you love the most, and why? Are there pieces of furniture that I didn’t mention that are common in your country?

Feel free to post your comments and answers! Remember that to control spam, we have to approve comments first, so please be patient.

~Jeff